


A-Z Drabbles: Johnny Jaqobis

by zullyquirke



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Family Issues, Gen, Hints at slash, Hopeful Futures, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Season 1, Siblings, chosen family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7745494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zullyquirke/pseuds/zullyquirke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles that exist before, after and during season one of the series. Johnny gets excited about Lucy, becomes a Scarback, and has complicated feelings about family and human beings in general.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A-E

**Access**

Being Dutch’s best friend for plural years came with a lot of perks. He knew more about her than most – she trusted him and let him in. They bantered with the ease of a long and easy compatibility, switching from sarcastic smiles to sharp alert in microseconds. They understood one another, and with time Johnny could tell the difference between teasing and her hard lined “no” that indicated he’d managed to inch up against one of the few boundaries she hadn’t let down for him yet.

It’s why he absolutely had to get inside the container they’d just picked up.

Before they’d docked at Old Town Dutch had tossed one of those smirks over her shoulder at him.

“And under no circumstances should you fuss about with our new cargo. You could get hurt.”

He had maybe an hour while she was cashing in their last warrant to sneak his way into the lead-lined crate that seemed impervious to even the best of Lucy’s scans. Curiosity, the need to know, the need to pass this test he knew Dutch was setting up for him, the need to make her proud _and_ possibly discover a new toy she’d picked up just for him all drove him to the edge of excited insanity. His leg bounced as he pulled off the front panel, biting at his thumb as he examined the complicated tangle of wires that seemed to connect themselves to the front lock.

He smiled.

 

**Buttons**

Johnny likes small things. He remembers being five years old and sitting on the porch, examining the dirt with a keen interest that only a child trying desperately to ignore the sounds coming from inside could. He’d never been good at staying still and quiet like they’d preferred and he’d long since learned that protesting in the ways typical children did was going to get him nowhere fast.

So he adapted. He studied the world around him. The way dust settled into the worn grooves of the dilapidated floor boards in his living room, the track of a small insect carrying a twig or a spare crumb of food twice its size to a hole in the ground. He’d imagine what it would be like to crawl into that tiny hole, to have a world of tunnels underground that he could explore and navigate. They’d be full of twists and turns that only he understood, expert that he’d be at them. He built a world in his mind, each addition more fantastical than the last.

A beetle had a small button on its back now. Johnny knew he was poor. He wasn’t destitute – they had food and a roof over their heads – but inside his father was screaming at his brother for having lost a button. D’av insisted he didn’t care, it was just a stupid button, and the unmistakable sound of a hand striking skin echoed against the hollow walls.

It was silver, catching the dying light of the sun as it slowly crept across the floor. The night before he’d seen D’avin stomp across the hallway towards their shared room, anger flushing his cheeks. He didn’t know what they were fighting about; he never knew. D’avin tried to protect him from most of it. But he remembered watching his brother tear off his shirt and tossing it angrily to the side, then the clink of a button that’d popped off. He watched it roll on its edge until it hit the wall, bouncing back a bit before flattening against their worn rug.

D’av had stared at it, chest heaving with rage he didn’t know how to channel. He picked up the button and tossed it out the window. D’av gave him one final, defiant glare.

“Fuck. Them.”

The beetle found his hole, his escape, button still balanced precariously on its shell. Johnny listened to the rise in pitch of the voices inside until the shining silver disappeared below ground.

 

**Counting**

“Thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine…”

An exhale. Pale lids rose, revealing bright blue eyes that were a healthy mix of exasperated and familiarly fond. “You’re counting out loud again, Jaqobis.”

Johnny’s body folded inward, and with a puff of air he flung himself backwards against the floor. Legs and arms akimbo, he stared at the ceiling.

“Are you sure meditation is a thing I have to do? Can’t I just, I don’t know, fetch water and deliver mail or something? Fix everyone’s toasters?” His head lolled to one side and when his eyes met Alvis’ they managed to be both exhausted and self depreciatingly amused.

“Everyone serves in their own way,” Alvis admitted with his characteristic flatness. It’d been a few months now though and Johnny could read nuance into his seemingly expressionless responses. The humor in his eyes, for example, and the quick way his eyes flitted away from Johnny’s when they met. A faint thread of uncertainty.

Too bad Johnny knew it had nothing to do with his chances at using his robes to fix toasters.

He turned to face the ceiling again. “I’ve just never been good at this whole focusing, clearing your mind thing. I get distracted easy.” Johnny felt rather than saw those eyes on him again. “If this is a requirement maybe you made the wrong call.”

Johnny didn’t have his robes yet; he was still in training. He was wearing a plain black hooded outfit instead and he felt kind of like he should have a dagger up his billowed sleeves and a sinister snarl. Like he was some kind of villain out of the stories D’av used to read to him when he was a kid.

He knew he could look out for himself. Between the time when D’av left and Dutch found him he’d managed just fine, but it’d been a pretty narrow window. He’d spent most of his life having people cover his ass, and while he’d like to think that he’d pulled his own weight it’d been a long time since he’d thought about the kind of man he wanted to be. The kind of cause he wanted to fight for. He’d spent too long fighting just to stay alive.

An exhale. One, two, three…

He was alive. More than that, he was alive and he had allies and a sense of self and a sense of purpose. He knew who he was, even if he didn’t know who he was becoming just yet. And he knew what he needed to do. Clarity smoothed the frown from his forehead, though he startled at the feel of a cool thumb pressed between his eyebrows.

Alvis was kneeling on the floor, a faint smile hovering just above him.

“Try again.”

 

**Deadlines**

He crumpled the notice in one fist, tossing it on the floor as he shoved his few meager possessions – the few he wanted to keep anyway – into a duffel bag.

With his dad in jail he’d been given a break on his debts only because he’d filed for a Special Circumstances Exception. He’d been taking care of his sick mother, and dying didn’t come cheap in the J. At the end she hadn’t even had the energy to beg drugs off of him, call him a worthless son for letting her waste away the way she did. He tried to remember the woman who stood up to their father for him and his brother, tried to close his eyes and focus on earlier days and hot pies and wooden toys she’d snuck in from the market before their father could see. He tried to remember that this wasn’t her, that this too was an extension of their father.

And if she was a burden on him now it was fair, more than fair for what he’d cost her growing up.

But she died. It had been just the two of him here and she’d died and he’d had no one to help. He made the funeral arrangements, had her buried in a plot with her family. He hadn’t bothered to let her husband know but he’d found out somehow anyway. Johnny’d woken up to five separate messages to delete. He wondered how much they’d cost him then reminded himself that he didn’t give a shit.

He’d used what little money he had left, the hang nails of his college savings, to settle her affairs. He wanted to make sure she rested easy. But he wouldn’t have ever been able to make a dent in his fathers, even if he wanted to.

Fuck him.

Today the note he knew was coming was finally delivered – he had ten days to settle the debt or he would be brought in to be held accountable for his father’s debts. There had been additional accruals that only appeared after his fathers’ arrest, and by law now that Johnny was legally an adult those responsibilities fell on him.

D’av took off to pursue his freedom, leaving Johnny to bear the brunt of that. To clean up the mess. To fix it.

But he couldn’t fix this. Ten days was enough to get off-world. He could trade for passage on a cargo ship to the middle of nowhere, someplace no one would bother to hunt him down. Maybe somewhere in the Quad. He honestly wasn’t picky – just so long as it wasn’t here.

He turned back to look at his home, taking in the smell of dust and wood and liquor and hate one last time.

He left.

 

**Euphoria**

Johnny couldn’t count on both of his hands the number of times he’d had wet dreams about being on Utopia. As cool as Johnny knew he was, though, he’d never been lucky enough to score an invitation – at least not before he’d been Dutch’s friend for a handful of years.

Man, did her friendship come with some awesome perks.

While D’av and Dutch were going full on party town with drinks and drugs or whatever they have going on (and Johnny was patently not thinking about what the two of them could get up to in tight leather and an unlimited amount of unresolved sexual tension) he was going to where the real party was: tech alley.

It's not that Johnny didn’t enjoy sex – he did. Loads. He liked loads of sex with tons of people in fantastic complicated orgies that only ever happened in his head because… well, because machines were easier than people. He knew how they worked, knew what to do when something broke down. He knew how to approach new tech, how to take it apart and put it back together.

And it’s not like he was completely inept when it came to people. He thought he did a damn good job at the whole friend thing, and he knew a half-grin with a bit of his dimples had gotten him out of more than one sticky situation in the past. But anything beyond friendship was … complicated. He envied people who just fell into sex or relationships, had a good time and went on their way. He didn’t know the specs for that.

And let’s face it, he wasn’t exactly Mr. Relationship. Not that sex had to mean relationships, but Johnny had a funny feeling that he’d have a tendency towards getting attached to someone he was with for too long. Call it a rare moment of personal clarity.

Paying for Pree’s sexers was so much easier. Plus he made friends after. Double win.


	2. F-I

**Favorites**

“She’s a ship, Dutch, she can’t play favorites.” His voice carried the amused weariness of a friendly argument that had played itself out more than once.

“Uh huh.” Dutch managed to glare fondly at the ceiling of what was supposed to be _her_ ship. “That’s why she’s always checking in on you, then?”

“It is prudent to ensure the safety of _all_ of my crew, Dutch,” Lucy replied primly, “Especially those that are more prone to injury.”

“Hey!” Johnny held his hands up. “A guy gets kidnapped and tortured one time – one time! And it was part of the plan.”

Dutch stood beside where he sat, nudging him with her hip. “And the time you were caught in acid rain. Also the time we were all exposed to nanites, the time you took on a horde of raiders trying to invade Lucy and nearly got brained by a brute, not to mention the time you—“

“Alright, alright, point taken.” He slid his best friend a glance, corner of his mouth quirking upwards in a way he knew showed off his most adorable dimples. “I’m not the only one who gets stuck in all those situations, though.”

“Yet you’re the only one Lucy checks in on.”

Johnny glanced upwards, jaw dropped in mock shock. “Lucy, say it ain’t so!”

There was a long pause.

“I’m afraid I have insufficient data to process the necessary statistics. Would you like me to begin a record, John?”

Dutch waved her hand. “See? She calls you _John_. And she didn’t ask me about statistical whatsits.”

Johnny smirked. “Not necessary, Luc.”

“Understood.”

 

**Green**

The job had been one of their rarer milk runs. After the heavy stuff Dutch liked to pick up more low key jobs for her team, something that kept them sharp but not – well, at the end of something sharp. It’d been a standard issue retrieval, picking up a long lost something or other that someone’s great grandmother had blah blah blah. It was something old and boring and Johnny couldn’t have cared less until he saw how much the job paid.

“Holy shit,” His eyes were saucer wide as he glanced up between both D’av and Dutch. “Is this right? This can’t be right. Someone messed up a decimal. People always mess up decimals.”

“ _You_ always mess up decimals.” D’av grinned, rolling his shoulder back.

“You wanna fight with me about math? Seriously?”

D’av just grinned as Dutch shook her head at the two of them. She picked up her pad. “If they did far be it from me to correct them. Someone must really want this…” She squinted at the display. “Hand mirror? Honestly?”

Johnny flattened his lips in amused disbelief. “Rich people, am I right?”

D’av was staring off to the side, a distant smile on his face. “Think of all that joy, though. What are you guys gonna spend it on?”

“Booze,” Dutch supplied easily. “Maybe a new hip holster, this one’s getting a bit slippy. Lucy may be due for some new parts soon enough, so might tuck a bit away for that particular rainy day.”

They both turned expectantly to Johnny, who looked at them with his best impression of what he assumed innocence must look like. “What?”

“Out with it,” D’av made a coaxing motion with his right hand. “What nerd tech are you dreaming about? Maybe a new comic book? Or, ooh, maybe you’ll pay another sexer to listen to you talk for an hour.”

Dutch didn’t even bother to hide her snicker, though the glance he got through her thick lashes was fond.

“Don’t blame me just because I’m better at making friends than you guys. And for your information, I’m going to save it.”

There was a long pause.

“We’re waiting for the other half of the joke,” D’av supplied when his brother failed to pick up his end of the conversation.

“I’m serious! You never know where we might end up and it’s good to have some spare joy in your pockets.” He licked his lips, shoving his hands in his pockets before admitting with a small grin. “Besides, we did some pretty good salvage on that last trip. Enough to keep me busy for a while. It’s nice to have some extra green.”

D’av’s nose wrinkled. “Why do people say that anyway? Green? Joy isn’t green. Is it because rich people can afford trees and grass and shit?” He groaned. “Trees. Tell me it isn’t another stupid monk think.”

“ _No_ ,” Johnny said, a little more harshly than necessary for no particular reason. “Back in the day currency was on paper, and some of it used to be green. So green means money.”

They both stared at him again.

“You’re such a nerd,” Dutch accused affectionately.

Johnny rocked back on his heels, smiling down at the floor even as he spun back around to fiddle with his new toys. “Trees, guys, read a book.”

 

**Hallowed**

“So this is the test where you try to kill off your candidates,” His voice was like sandpaper against wet rocks and swallowing felt just about as pleasant. “Death by heat exposure? Or is this some kind of kink I’m gonna have to get used to like cutting up my arms when I feel bad about shit? I think I prefer that one.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much, Jaqobis?” Alvis only let his lips quirk up slightly because Johnny was facing the other direction, and he made sure any trace of it was gone before it had a chance to carry with his words. “This is a hallowed site. All those who wish to take on the robes pray here. They find solace in the simplicity of the heat.”

“Yeah, because it burns so many of your brain cells that you can’t think about anything else.”

Alvis stood, his bare feet silent against the burning sand. Johnny didn’t turn to watch him, but he felt Alvis’ presence approaching from behind. It was amazing what you picked up on when you were in close quarters with someone for six solid months.

He wondered how Dutch was doing.

Ignoring the pang in his chest he licked his dry lips, immediately regretting the action when he felt his split lip crack open further. Alvis kneeled in front of him, not bothered at all by the sand that had to be burning blisters into the sensitive bottoms of his feet.

“Pain comes in many forms,” He began quietly. “When people join our order they expect the cutting and the hooks, but there’s much more to it than that.” A beat. “You of all people should realize that.”

He stubbornly didn’t lick his lip again. Alvis wasn’t wrong. It’d taken a lot to get him to where he is now, to not be in the air with Dutch and D’avin hunting down warrants. To embrace _religion_ of all things. Hells, a year ago he’d have had an easier time picturing himself as a politician than a monk.

It was strange, the path life led you down.

“Yeah,” He admitted at last. Alvis had gotten used to the long pauses Johnny took, realizing now that it took him time to reign in his thoughts. Sometimes he had to wander down a path and back before committing himself to walking down it. Trust took a while to build up and Johnny was still forming his with both Alvis and the order.

And Alvis of all people should understand what it took to build trust.

His lips quirked and Alvis sighed when he saw the dimple.

“But my thing was funnier.”

Alvis looked like he was warring between half a dozen different replies, possibly ranging from “Every time I see that dimple I know you’re about to be a smartass,” to “Can you ever give an honest answer without deflecting with humor?”

In the end his reply was as simple as his dedication was. “It was.”

 

**Invincible**

“I think I’m gonna cry,” Johnny murmured as he stared at the most beautiful set of curves he’d ever laid eyes on. She shone in the sun, nestled in a bright green field that seemed impossibly well manicured. A discreet scan gave him details that made him close his eyes and dream of cold showers – she was more than just a pretty face. According to his data she was as well-endowed on the inside as she was on the outside.

He had to have that ship.

Without taking his eyes off of her he slid his palm device into his back pocket and identified her hull entrance, already mentally decrypting her security systems. It was no easy task; they were advanced. Whoever’d set up her shields and defense systems was good, but he was better. She wasn’t the first ship he’d boosted, but by the looks of her she may be his last. He could see himself living out the rest of his life on a beauty like this one.

The sun was setting and he took advantage of the low lighting to crawl up her side and pry open a side panel.

“Sorry, baby, I promise this won’t take long.” He paused and winced. “See, this is why I don’t date. If this is how lame I sound with non-sentient beings...” Johnny clucked his tongue, giving his head a quick shake before his lips quirked upwards. “Time to stick to what I’m good at.”

It was an hour before he had her decrypted, and another two before he’d coaxed her docking ramp down. He was drooling at the thought of giving her a much more intimate examination, but first things first: he had to get her in the air.

Johnny’d flown a lot of ships since he left the J, but none had felt like this. Sitting behind her controls felt like home, like the closest thing he could imagine to family. The tips of his fingers tingled with electricity and he imagined himself connected to the ship, just another bundle of wires and impulses wrapped in skin and muscle instead of steel and copper. When he was in this seat he felt powerful. Invincible.

Pain exploded in his left shoulder. He shouted, hand going for his gun as he turned to face his would-be assassin. She was small, but Johnny’d learned not to make the mistake of assuming size meant much of anything. The way she stood and the look in her eye told him she meant business. His arm was going numb, blood began to drip down his sleeve and onto the floor. He remembered the faucet in their washroom growing up, the old-fashioned sink dripping into a rust-spot at the bottom of the cheap metal basin.

“What the shit?” He managed eloquently.

“That’s my line.”

The last thing he remembered was a sharp pain in his side as his body crumpled, then the cold floor against his side as his world went black.


	3. J-O

**Jinxed**

“It’s me, isn’t it? I’m cursed.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Johnny,” Dutch’s head lolled against the back of her chair, and she was grinning. Rude.

“Seriously, can you even remember the last time I got laid? How about the hint of getting laid? I feel like a teenager hoping for some over the shirt action.”

She chuckled, pushing up out of her chair. “You could always try actually sexing the sexers, you know. As much fun as it is to hear you talk they do have that job for a reason.”

Johnny gave her a self-depreciating smile. “Now that’s just crazy talk.”

Dutch sighed, grabbing Johnny’s hand and pulling him over to the couch instead. They could both sit there and cuddle a little as they often did, as required by the difficulties this job and partnership sometimes brought to their doorstep. “It’ll happen when it’s supposed to. That’s what everyone says, anyway.”

Johnny settled in beside her, resting his head against her shoulder. His smirk was audible. “You actually believe in fate?”

She combed fingers through his short hair, musing as much to herself as she was to her friend. “I don’t know. I never used to. Fate is something you take into your own hands. Fate is what you become. You decide what you want fate to be and you work to make it happen.”

Johnny turned a little to look up at her, amused confusion twisting his mouth and creasing his brow. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of fate?”

“Maybe,” Amusement pursed her lips. “But I can’t think of another reason why we should’ve met, let alone become best friends.”

“There was the whole I Stole Your Ship And You Shot Me thing,” He pointed out.

Dutch actually laughed. “Rather my point, actually. I’m not in the habit of letting people who steal what’s mine skate by so easily.” She pressed a kiss to his temple. “No matter what, you’ve always got me, Jaqobis.”

Warmth spread through him; he could feel himself physically relaxing. Blue eyes that held more self doubt than he’d ever say out loud met hers. “Even if I’m a jinx?”

She laughed again, short and quiet. No one else in this world had ever made her smile more than Johnny Jaqobis. “No matter what.”

 

**Kinesthetic**

“You made that word up.” D’av accused, staring down at the Scrabble board.

Johnny raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re challenging me on a word? We both have our strengths, D’av, and I feel obgliated as your brother to point out—“

“Yeah, yeah,” He waved his hand, “I’m just saying you’re arrogant enough to make up a word just because you figured I wouldn’t know any better. Look it up.”

Johnny wanted to be indignant but he’d literally done that last round, so he just gave his brother a cheeky grin. “Lucy, define _kinesthetic_.”

“Kinesthetic: adjective. A tactile learning style in which learning takes place by the students carrying out physical activity.”

Johnny pointed at him. “Ha!”

D’avin’s nose wrinkled. “You win. Hey, that’s kind of the way you do things, isn’t it?”

“What, by being smart as hell?”

“ _No_ , the kinesthetic thing. You always picked stuff up by doing it. Taking apart dad’s toaster, or the time you hotwired Mr. McDunnough’s ship.” D’av grinned. “That was badass, by the way.”

“Why, thank you. You do too, you know. Remember how long it took you to figure out how star mapping worked? The second we got up here you got it. You just had to experience space before you could apply the science.”

D’av slid him a dubious glance. “I dunno. I think I’ll leave the science nerd shit to you.” He laughed when Johnny punched him in the shoulder.

It was true enough. For better or worse the Jaqobis brothers always learned best by doing. Here’s to hoping they’d survive their future fuckups.

 

**Little**

Johnny still liked little things. He learned through countless internet searches like “how to deal with a fucked up childhood” and “ways to deal with your shit” that a lot of people with backgrounds like him avoided everything from their lives growing up. And it made sense. Johnny could understand wanting to start over completely and leave the life you had behind you. It’s what D’av’d done.

He took a moment to swallow a wave of bitterness.

But Johnny still liked learning. He loved technology. Even with his chances at going to University officially obliterated he still wanted to learn everything he could. He’d never be a proper engineer but he could still learn how the world worked. Be one in all but certification. And at the ass-end of the galaxy that’s all anyone really gave a shit about anyway. All that mattered was if you could do it and how much you charged.

And he’d always learned better by being hands on anyway. He liked picking up pieces of junk and taking them apart, learning how they worked and piecing them back together again in a way that was wholly new and actually useful. He made a kind of living off of it in his first few years out of the J.

Johnny was also a fixer. One of the natural biproducts of an abusive home – some children became fixers. They thought their job was to mend things that were broken, and Johnny knew himself well enough to understand that this impulse wasn’t always a great one.

So when a girl came into the corner stall he was known to work out of, he knew he was fucked. Calling her a girl might have been a little generous; she was so young and so malnourished that there almost wasn’t a point in distinguishing. Her sunken eyes were clearly used to shame and it’d hardened her. There was a fight in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in a long time. Her jacket was missing it’s buttons and she tried valiantly to keep it fastened by clutching the fabric together in one small, bony hand.

As much as Johnny tried to offer it, the girl refused to accept charity. She’d exchange parts or a few precious joy she stumbled across for his work, often times sitting beside him as he worked. He’d tell her how each part fit together, walk her through the process of the repairs. Maybe she’d be able to fix things up herself once he’d taken off from this planet, maybe she’d be able to take over his space when he did.

One rainy morning she’d come in to do just that, wearing that same jacket for protection from the elements. It’d let up by the time she left, and he’d even earned a small smile from her for the lesson. It wasn’t until he was tidying up that he noticed she’d left the jacket tucked carefully under the awning, obviously hung to dry as much as it was able.

She’d be by to pick it up again before the evening cold set in. She’d definitely notice it by then.

Quietly, Johnny sat back down and pulled out a small box of odds and ends he’d scavenged off of pieces people had left with him. He found six matching metal buttons. By the time the girl came by to retrieve the jacket, long after Johnny had gone home, all six had been sewn on and the dried garment was neatly folded on top of his stand.

Johnny liked little things.

 

**Mom**

“So what happened?” D’av was suddenly just there, leaning against the frame of Johnny’s room, arms crossed over his chest that made his biceps bulge almost comically. His brother, picture of testosterone and masculine rage.

Johnny glanced down at his comic book. “Uh. You really want me to catch you up on the last few years in comics? Because I can, but you’re probably gonna want to sit down for it.”

D’av’s eyes went flat. “With mom, asshole.” He licked his lips, fingers fidgeting a bit against his arms. “I never—I want to know what happened.”

That wiped the humor from Johnny’s face. He swiveled so he was sitting up and facing the door, then nodded towards the chair by his desk. “Then you’re definitely going to want to sit down.”

He actually waited as D’av hesitated, clearly torn between his request and the quiet absorption of his brother’s rarely serious expression. He sat down.

Johnny looked down at the bedsheet, picking at it a bit with his fingers. He shrugged. “You know mom got on jakk because of dad in the first place.” D’av had been there for that part. Neither of them could even really blame her at the time. Being around their dad had been constant misery and jakk was the only way she could feel even halfway decent about herself. “When dad got locked up mom blamed herself.” Johnny let out a short, breathy laugh. “Actually blamed herself. I mean he blamed her too of course, but we both know what an asshole he was.”

He paused to take a breath. He could feel the weight of D’av’s eyes on him, feel the tension radiating off of his brother from the other side of the room. “Guess the guilt was too much. Instead of shooting up once every few days, it was every day. Then any time she went to visit dad, which was as often as he told her to. She couldn’t even leave the house at the end. She’d get messages from dad asking what he’d done to deserve a shitty wife who didn’t even visit him in prison, and it basically went downhill from there.”

D’av waited for Johnny to continue, but he didn’t. “And you were there with her? The whole time?”

“Oh, you know, between going out to scrape garbage bins for food and work whatever shitty odd jobs I could pull off, yeah. Me and mom played chess every night and talked about literature. It was a real bonding experience.”

D’av winced. “Johnny, look, I’m so—“

“Don’t.” Johnny’s response was quick, clipped. “Don’t apologize for shit you can’t even understand.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m trying to move past it, D’av, I really am. You’re my brother and I love you. But I can’t do this all at once.”

There was an audible swallow, and Johnny looked up just in time to see D’av’s stiff nod. “Alright.” He stood awkwardly. “Just—anything you need, okay? Anytime you want to, you know, talk, or—“

Punch him in the head?

Johnny exhaled. That wasn’t fair. D’av was trying. So he just nodded.

“Yeah, D’av. I’ll let you know.”

 

**Nature**

It’s been years. Or at least it feels like it’s been years – it’s probably been like, twenty seconds or something. He’s pretty sure that if he asks Alvis the time he’ll give him some sort of infuriating non-answer so he doesn’t bother.

In the long months that he’d spent training he’d finally gotten the whole meditation thing down, but that had opened up additional doors to problems he didn’t know existed.

Apparently, Johnny had a rage problem.

He’d actually laughed out loud. In Alvis’ face. “Rage problems? Me? I think you have the wrong brother.”

Alvis’ face was frustratingly patient. “When you empty your mind, where does it take you?”

“Uh, nowhere. I thought that was the point?”

He was rewarded with a small, tight smile. “Kind of what I mean, Jaqobis. You can’t even answer the question without putting a little anger behind it.”

Johnny rubbed a hand back over his head, ruffling his hair. He needed to get it cut; it’d been awhile. “Look, I just really don’t—okay, I get what you _could_ think I’d be angry about, but I’m over it.”

Alvis’ silence was decidedly unimpressed.

“So I had shit parents – a lot of kids did. And yeah, I was mad for a while, but I think the shit end they met kind of evened it out. Yeah, D’av taking off pissed me off too. But we’re past that too. We write each other cute little brotherly notes and everything.”

“While he’s off traveling with Dutch.”

Johnny pointedly ignored the pang in his side. “Yeah.”

“In the same seat you were in not two years ago, before D’avin came back into your life.”

“Definitely not in the same seat. Dutch’d never let him sit in the pilot’s seat. Lucy wouldn’t stand for it.”

 A slow exhale. “You can deflect your issues with humor all you like. I have all the time in the world.” One of his pale eyebrows arched. “Maybe patience will be one of your first marks of penance.”

Manipulative bastard. Alvis was well familiar with the majority of Johnny’s quirks by now, so he knew how much Johnny hated sitting idle when he could be moving on.

“What do you want me to say? That I’m still pissed at D’av? That I’m afraid Dutch’ll replace me?” He tore his eyes away from those that were too understanding and turned to pace at the back of the dimly lit room. “Look, saying it out loud doesn’t help, alright? The facts are still the facts. There’s nothing D’av can do that he hasn’t already done. He apologized, and I know he means it. I’ve seen the look on his face. And Dutch—“ He closed his eyes, forcing himself to exhale slowly. One, two, three…

He’s quieter when he speaks again. “I’ve never had anything like what I have with her. I’m just afraid to lose it is all. It’s not her fault.”

Part of his training has allowed Johnny to appreciate absolute silence. He hadn’t realized until now that this same training helped heighten his senses. No longer used to the low thrum of Lucy’s engines or the din of clamoring voices in a cheap bar, he could hear Alvis’ nearly silent footsteps against the earthen floor. He was standing less than two feet from him; Johnny knew the distance before he turned around.

“And there it is.” Alvis’ smile was softer now, fonder. It’s the smile he got when Johnny’d done something unexpectedly right, which seemed to be Alvis’ favorite kind of right. “Why do you think it has to be anyone’s fault?”

He let the statement hang there for a moment, which was good because Johnny’s stunned silence left him speechless. So Alvis continued.

“Anger’s part of our natures. All of ours,” He added, holding up a hand to halt Johnny’s protest before it ever left his mouth. “Your brother learned to channel it through the army, through physical violence. You think you handle it with humor, but you don’t. You mask it.” Alvis tapped Johnny’s chest. “It’s all still in there, decades of it. You have to learn to process it and let it go.”

Alvis’ fingers were still resting on his chest, and a dull ache that started at that point of pressure rippled slowly outward. He could feel it all, so suddenly his knees nearly buckled. He must’ve gone slightly pale because Alvis was moving him back towards a floor cushion, a steady hand on his back and sternum.

“Breathe, Jaqobis. Hold onto it and breathe.”

If Johnny imagined a touch more concern than he’d seen in his friends’ eyes before, he wrote it off. But as Johnny spoke, shouted and sobbed his way through years of rage, those hands never left him.

 

**Openers**

They’d spent a week tracking down where Khlyen had taken D’avin. A lucky tip landed them near Red 17, and Johnny nearly shit himself when he saw the compound and how isolated it was.

“This could be a one way mission, Dutch,” He warned. “The security here isn’t messing around. I’ve done scans and I’m pretty sure even Lucy’s a little scared. Well, scared and turned on.”  
  
“I am a ship, John,” Lucy’s affect was as flat as ever. “I do not get ‘turned on’ unless I am recovering from a full system shut down.”

Johnny let himself smirk for a second. “Duly noted, Lucy.”

“I knew what I was getting into when we got here, Johnny,” Dutch reminded him, making her way towards her armory to suit up.

Johnny followed. “What I’m saying is he’s my brother. I’m genetically incapable of not going in after him, but you don’t have to.”

Dutch’s eyes swung up to his, wild and sharp. “Johnny Jaqobis, you are not going in there after D’avin by yourself. Even if D’avin was no one to me I would go. Do you understand me?” She reached out to grip his shoulders. “I am always with you. We will get D’av back.”

Shit was a little complicated. He’d left D’av after being stabbed and fighting with him about their pasts. He had no idea how messed up and awkward things were between D’av and Dutch, but he’d guess “a lot.” But it didn’t matter. The three of them were a team in ways that went beyond the Killjoys.

Johnny smiled. “Alright. Let’s go get my dumbass brother.”

The corner of Dutch’s mouth lifted upwards. “Not hugely inspiring as an opener, but I’ll take it.”


End file.
